I'm not a proffessional photographer, just a reasonably good amature one, and have been a linux user an advocate for over 10 years.
Gimp is a fantastic program and a great example of what can be achieved by open source, but I have to admit it is not photoshop CS. Before you start to flame hear me out.
Firstly 99% of people probably don't need photoshop CS, and gimp is much more suited to them than photoshop CS is anyway. Gimp (version 2 and above at least) is easier to use and much cheaper than photoshop CS. This 99% of people is the photoshop elements market, and gimp beats photoshop elements hands down on most things
(mainly because it has a `levels tool' [don't know if this has been added to elements 3]). Elements just has too many things missing.
For the other 1% of people, gimp does just not cut it. My main reasons for using photoshop are that it handles 16-bit per channel colour, colour calibration is easier and the workflow from the in-built file browser (which browses raw format files) through editing to printing is much smoother than with gimp. Gimp does do this at a push, but it is a struggle. Also adjustment layers are a dream (I don't know if these have been added to gimp recently).
As I said before, most people don't need these features, but most Pros probably do.
To finish, one place where gimp wins is on the channel mixer, where it is possible to lock the overall brightness level as you mix to monochrome.
Photoshop CS is currently missing this feature.:)
It was the quality of writing that made Altered Carbon so good in my eyes. it felt like each sentence had been carefully crafted and was the first sci-fi book I had read in a long time that had been really well written (from a literary perspective). Broken Angels and Market forces however read like they had been rushed to meet deadlines, this didn't make them bad books, just a little dissapointing after the first.
Anyone want to start a company with me that makes a product which diables you TV if you get up to make a drink during an ad. break?
UK seems a little better.
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Here in the UK things are a little better particularly with banking.
How does this sound:
No monthly charges, no charges for use of Cards (in the UK at least) Interest on current account balences (upto about 3%).
The UK has regulators who generally try to keep these things in check.
Airlines are generally just as bad, although some of the newer buget carriers quote you the price all taxes included.
I have mixed views on number of multiple distributions, but when it comes down to it the most of the reasons I can think of why one would like to see less distribution out there are all based around FUD.
I may think a friend who uses a GUI which is different from the one that I use a little weird, but when it comes down to it, any thoughts I have concerning its inferiority are because I don't use it and aren't used to it, rather than based around what I acually know. Sure it doesn't do some things as well as what I use, but there are certainly other things it does better.
All distributions have there good points and their bad points, if you don't like them don't use them.
When I go to the supermarket I don't complain about the huge choice in washing detergent that there is on sale, and how difficult it is for me to choose the right one, and I really know nothing about washing powder. If I find myself suddenly not liking it I try something else.
The big difference between linux and more commercila thigs like washing powder and cars is that the openness of linux means that often improvements made by one particular distributer are often made available to others. The friendly competition between KDE and gnome should be considered a good thing.
The one area when the variation can cause hassle is when releasing binaries. Having to produce 6 or more different binaries for different distributions, or even versions of the same distribution can be a pain. But even then there are usually people who use distributions I don't that are prepared to help out, and in the longterm this probably just encourages better codeing techniques to allow for the necessary portability.
People are always going to be ardent supporters of one version of a product, but when it comes down to it, you only know how good you product is when there are others to compare it to.
It is worth noting that case studies have shown that the vocal chords can suffer the same kind of injuries that hands and wrists can suffer when used in an abnormal fashion, like when speaking strongly and clearly to a speech recogniser.
So speech recognition may not be the ideal answer you are looking for.
I agree, there is nothing wrong with a closed source driver as long as it is good and it works.
The problem is that companies don't seem to be prepared to put the same amount of effort into a linux driver as they do a windows driver. Which I guess is currently understandable as they probably sell products to many more windows users than they do linux users. Hopefully as there become more and more linux users, effort put into these drivers will increase.
I guess companies probably need more effort for linux drivers than for windows ones to cover kernel modules for all the standard distributions.
Where I can understand their reasons for wanting closed source drivers. The problems occuring with new versions of XF86 and with performance of various configurations just go to hilight the problems of being closed source in an open source world. You just can't keep up, because you are out of the loop.
As someone involved in the purchasing of computers, this is bad news for NVidia because as far as I like their cards and drivers enough to have one to play around. I can't recommend them for bulk purchases of new machines as they are just too difficult to keep configured and upto date.
This means that NVidia sell only 1 card where they could have sold more. Which is a shame as they have played an important part in the graphics card industry over recent years.
How do these monitors work? You rotate it through 90 degrees to switch between portrait and landscape I presume.
Is the image rasterized in lines left to right decending down the screen in both modes of operation? Or does it expect you graphics hardware to do the rotation for you so it can refresh the screen in lines bottom to top crossing the screen left to right once rotated.
If the latter is the case. X would need to do this transformation for you, and setting multiple resolutions alone would not be sufficient.
The WAP phone technology currently being introduced seems to have a lot in common with gopher. Not in the sence that they are the same thing, but in the sence that there is something a lot more powerfull just sitting around the corner waiting to come along and take over to an extent that most people don't even remember what was there before.
There is also another area for concern with online journals. When you or your library subscribe to a hard print journal you get sent a paper copy which you get to keep and refer to whenever you want -- for the rest of eternity if you keep it in good condition!
This may not be the case with an online journal. Here the publisher can license the journal to you in such a way, that if you decide to stop your subscription, you don't just not get access to future editions, but you lose access to material you previously did had access to.
I don't know how prolific this kind of licencing is, but I bet we are going to see more of in the future.
This may not be too much of an issue at the moment as many journals are hard copy + online access; but eventually the hard copies are going to go.
If you use an online Journal check out its license, and see where you stand.
You can get triband phones from the UK that are usable in the US through a partner of the phone company back home. It should be noted that they are not cheap, and I've no idea what data transfer rates over them is like.
Calls tend to get charged as if you are on the partners network, so don't accessing your voicemail a lot, it is an international call!
All you would then need is a UK ISP with a US access number. Oh and the cash to pay for all of this.
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Firstly 99% of people probably don't need photoshop CS, and gimp is much more suited to them than photoshop CS is anyway. Gimp (version 2 and above at least) is easier to use and much cheaper than photoshop CS. This 99% of people is the photoshop elements market, and gimp beats photoshop elements hands down on most things (mainly because it has a `levels tool' [don't know if this has been added to elements 3]). Elements just has too many things missing.
For the other 1% of people, gimp does just not cut it. My main reasons for using photoshop are that it handles 16-bit per channel colour, colour calibration is easier and the workflow from the in-built file browser (which browses raw format files) through editing to printing is much smoother than with gimp. Gimp does do this at a push, but it is a struggle. Also adjustment layers are a dream (I don't know if these have been added to gimp recently). As I said before, most people don't need these features, but most Pros probably do. To finish, one place where gimp wins is on the channel mixer, where it is possible to lock the overall brightness level as you mix to monochrome. Photoshop CS is currently missing this feature. :)
It was the quality of writing that made Altered Carbon so good in my eyes. it felt like each sentence had been carefully crafted and was the first sci-fi book I had read in a long time that had been really well written (from a literary perspective). Broken Angels and Market forces however read like they had been rushed to meet deadlines, this didn't make them bad books, just a little dissapointing after the first.
Anyone want to start a company with me that makes a product which diables you TV if you get up to make a drink during an ad. break?
Here in the UK things are a little better particularly with banking. How does this sound: No monthly charges, no charges for use of Cards (in the UK at least) Interest on current account balences (upto about 3%). The UK has regulators who generally try to keep these things in check. Airlines are generally just as bad, although some of the newer buget carriers quote you the price all taxes included.
I have mixed views on number of multiple distributions, but when it comes down to it the most of the reasons I can think of why one would like to see less distribution out there are all based around FUD.
I may think a friend who uses a GUI which is different from the one that I use a little weird, but when it comes down to it, any thoughts I have concerning its inferiority are because I don't use it and aren't used to it, rather than based around what I acually know. Sure it doesn't do some things as well as what I use, but there are certainly other things it does better.
All distributions have there good points and their bad points, if you don't like them don't use them.
When I go to the supermarket I don't complain about the huge choice in washing detergent that there is on sale, and how difficult it is for me to choose the right one, and I really know nothing about washing powder. If I find myself suddenly not liking it I try something else.
The big difference between linux and more commercila thigs like washing powder and cars is that the openness of linux means that often improvements made by one particular distributer are often made available to others. The friendly competition between KDE and gnome should be considered a good thing.
The one area when the variation can cause hassle is when releasing binaries. Having to produce 6 or more different binaries for different distributions, or even versions of the same distribution can be a pain. But even then there are usually people who use distributions I don't that are prepared to help out, and in the longterm this probably just encourages better codeing techniques to allow for the necessary portability.
People are always going to be ardent supporters of one version of a product, but when it comes down to it, you only know how good you product is when there are others to compare it to.
It is worth noting that case studies have shown that the vocal chords can suffer the same kind of injuries that hands and wrists can suffer when used in an abnormal fashion, like when speaking strongly and clearly to a speech recogniser.
So speech recognition may not be the ideal answer you are looking for.
I agree, there is nothing wrong with a closed source driver as long as it is good and it works.
The problem is that companies don't seem to be prepared to put the same amount of effort into a linux driver as they do a windows driver.
Which I guess is currently understandable as they probably sell products to many more windows users than they do linux users. Hopefully as there become more and more linux users, effort put into these drivers will increase.
I guess companies probably need more effort for linux drivers than for windows ones to cover kernel modules for all the standard distributions.
NVidia really need to get there act together.
Where I can understand their reasons for wanting closed source drivers. The problems occuring with new versions of XF86 and with performance of various configurations just go to hilight the problems of being closed source in an open source world. You just can't keep up, because you are out of the loop.
As someone involved in the purchasing of computers, this is bad news for NVidia because as far as I like their cards and drivers enough to have one to play around. I can't recommend them for bulk purchases of new machines as they are just too difficult to keep configured and upto date.
This means that NVidia sell only 1 card where they could have sold more. Which is a shame as they have played an important part in the graphics card industry over recent years.
How do these monitors work? You rotate it through 90 degrees to switch between portrait and landscape I presume.
Is the image rasterized in lines left to right decending down the screen in both modes of operation? Or does it expect you graphics hardware to do the rotation for you so it can refresh the screen in lines bottom to top crossing the screen left to right once rotated.
If the latter is the case. X would need to do this transformation for you, and setting multiple resolutions alone would not be sufficient.
The WAP phone technology currently being introduced seems to have a lot in common with gopher. Not in the sence that they are the same thing, but in the sence that there is something a lot more powerfull just sitting around the corner waiting to come along and take over to an extent that most people don't even remember what was there before.
Just a thought.
There is also another area for concern with online journals. When you or your library subscribe to a hard print journal you get sent a paper copy which you get to keep and refer to whenever you want -- for the rest of eternity if you keep it in good condition!
This may not be the case with an online journal. Here the publisher can license the journal to you in such a way, that if you decide to stop your subscription, you don't just not get access to future editions, but you lose access to material you previously did had access to.
I don't know how prolific this kind of licencing is, but I bet we are going to see more of in the future.
This may not be too much of an issue at the moment as many journals are hard copy + online access; but eventually the hard copies are going to go.
If you use an online Journal check out its license, and see where you stand.
You can get triband phones from the UK that are usable in the US through a partner of the phone company back home. It should be noted that they are not cheap, and I've no idea what data transfer rates over them is like.
Calls tend to get charged as if you are on the partners network, so don't accessing your voicemail a lot, it is an international call!
All you would then need is a UK ISP with a US access number. Oh and the cash to pay for all of this.